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ro·man·tic
adj.
Given to thoughts or feelings of romance;
imaginative but impractical;
tan·gle
v.
To mix together or intertwine;
n.
A confused, intertwined mass.
A jumbled or confused state or condition

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Pages

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Saturday morning, this was a linen skirt. By Saturday afternoon, I'd cut it into squares, backed them with fusible interfacing, and traced three of the designs for my latest embroidery project.

It was probably never a flattering skirt, but I loved it and definitely got my money's worth out that thrift shop purchase. Even after I saw that it had a tiny hole, I kept wearing it because the gathers camouflaged it and I'm sure no one ever looks at the backs of my knees.

Then I decided that it was the perfect fabric for a quilt I wanted to make and out came the scissors! The thought had crossed my mind that this linen would make a good purse. I just needed the right project and pattern...which turned out to be for a quilt.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Here's the second to the last square for the Vintage Vignettes wall hanging. It's appropriate for this week, since we've been out shopping for apple trees.

Someone told Hubby about Honeycrisp apples and they're now his favorite apples ever, so we've been checking out the local nurseries and doing research to see if they'll grow in our neck of the woods and learning about things like "chill hours."

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules: Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned, as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

After years and years of thinking about it, I'm finally knitting an afghan. I needed another mindless knitting project, something I can pick up when my fingers are restless and I want to do some knitting but can't devote much concentration to it. Little garter stitch squares would be just perfect and these shades of green are just right for a Creeper.

These are so easy I can even work on them while I'm reading!

Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes is the sequel to You. After his ill-fated relationship with Beck, Joe has fallen a girl who's her exact opposite. There's absolutely no personal information about Amy online. Even her phones are purchased with cash and periodically replaced. When Amy disappears with a small fortune worth of rare books from his shop, Joe follows her across the country to Los Angeles. Stalking is nothing new for him, but while it was easy to track Beck's every mood and move, Amy is almost impossible for him to find. And there are distractions....a beautiful young woman named Love and a piece of forgotten evidence from an old murder that might be the end of him. Once again, it was easy to forget that Joe isn't the type of person I wanted to be rooting for. Hidden bodies was full of twists and surprises. I don't know if there will be more books featuring Joe or not, but I'd definitely be willing to read more about him.

If you like psychological thrillers, I absolutely recommend Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon. Alex Dale, a journalist who has hit rock bottom starts researching a story about communicating with coma patients and finds herself standing next to the bed of Amy Stevenson, a woman who has been lying in a bed in Bramble Ward for half her life. When she was fifteen years old, Amy was brutally assaulted and left in a coma, the crime unsolved. Over the years, Amy's mother has died and her stepfather has given her up as dead to the world. But now that she's been reminded of the crime that cut Amy's life short, Alex becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened that afternoon.

In Shards of Murder, the second Webb's Glass Shop mystery, Savannah Webb has taken her dead father's place as judge at a local art festival. The winning artist doesn't appear at the awards ceremony and when Savannah finds her body later she becomes a suspect in the murder. One of the reasons I love cozy crafting mysteries is because they either let me read about the things I enjoy or give me vicarious experience doing something I'd never try myself. Cheryl Hollon's descriptions of Samantha's fused glasses have me wanting to sign up, but as clutzy as I am that's probably a bad idea. I'll be watching for Cracked to Death, which is due out in June.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

One of my least favorite words in the English language is "dated." I tend to cringe when I hear quilters talking about dated fabric and yarn. And then there's this...

I think it's more estate sale leftovers from Grandma, but I also have a very vague memory of very cheap yarn. So I might've bought these five skeins of 70s era avocado green myself. If I was being honest with myself a few years back, I would have let this stuff go because it's a bunch of mismatched acrylic in unattractive shades of green.

But time passes and fads come and go and I know exactly what to knit with this. The colors are just right.

Friday, February 19, 2016

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules: Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned, as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

I'm finding all sorts of things in the sewing room and decided it would be fun to show some of them off. Some projects, like this one, predate the blog entirely. Others are from before I figured out how to take decent pictures and before I had many readers.

After the Rain (pattern by Linda Myers) kept me stitching away for weeks, filling in what seemed like endless expanses of mud and clouds and grass. I remember working on it in the call center. That would have been at least a dozen years ago.

Looking at it now, it would be perfect for our old farmhouse. I guess I'll need to find a frame that's the right size.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Lately, I skip the risks and stick with techniques that I know will work. I wasn't always such a chicken. Looking back at what I was knitting ten years ago, I couldn't imagine doing half of that stuff now. I don't know when things changed. Maybe it was because back then everything was new and I didn't have an arsenal of tried and true methods? Maybe I've got enough stress in my life these days without venturing off into uncharted territory?

This heel is different from anything I've done before. It had me forming the gusset stitches as I knit the heel flap, then turning the heel, then doing the decreases. I have no clue how all of that actually worked, but it's a heel and I didn't have to pick up stitches along the edges of the heel flap.

It would have been easier to knit my regular short row heel instead of following the pattern as written. About halfway through, when it was looking nothing like I thought it should, I was wishing I'd stuck with familiar territory instead of deciding to experiment. But everything worked out.

Now I get to look forward to doing it again on the second sock.

Jean Taylor's husband is dead and there's no reason for her to continue to hide his secrets. The press has hounded her for years, but now that they know she's free to speak her own mind about Glen and the missing child they're more persistent than ever before. The Widow by Fiona Barton isn't Jean's story alone. Alternating chapters are told from the point of view of the reporter who is finally about to get her dream story and the officer who investigated the kidnapping. The timeline shifts between the present day and the day of the kidnapping, which kept me wondering how much Jean actually knows about what happened. I enjoyed the read, but the ending left me wanting something more.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Just look at what I unearthed in the sewing room! There were nine pillowcases, making taped together into two bundles. I didn't save the tape, but I think they were marked a dollar each.

That would've been a great price, but I've never seen these before. My best guess is that Grandma sent them home to me in a box of estate sale leftovers and I didn't see them tucked in between a bunch of white sheets.

I don't agree with the sentiment, but this one is going on my pillow.

The border on this one looks crocheted. That's one of the skills on my own to-learn list, but when and if I ever do an edging it's going to be wide enough that it won't be mistaken for buttonhole stitch!

I'll run them through the washer on gentle and see which ones look sturdy enough to actually use. The white ones are fair game, but if the pretty ones seem too delicate I may figure out a different use for them.

Monday, February 15, 2016

I'm falling farther and farther behind on this zippered bag project. LiEr just posted chapter fourteen and I'm still back on number six, the flat zippered pouch. This is the one that she says everyone has made a hundred times. Not me. I was too busy avoiding zippers to be sucked in by zippered pouch tutorials. Because they contained those dreaded zippers....

Which I don't dread nearly as much since I've started following along with LiEr. I can do the zipper now. It's the coming up with measurements and templates that has me stumped. Drafting quilts is easy, but three dimensional objects still intimidate me. I'll get over that, though. I really want the Zippered Gusset Utility Case and Collapsible Drum, even if it means tackling some geometry and shopping for supplies.

This fabric wasn't directional and the piece I had to work with wasn't great for fussy cutting but I did what I could with what I had. For a thrift store scrap and an estate sale zipper, I don't think it came out half bad.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

I'm not showing any pictures of the sewing room yet. I've stolen a few more hours to dig through bags and boxes and while the mess doesn't look much prettier, I'm making progress!

I've cut the list of things I'm looking for in half. Those Workbasket transfers haven't made an appearance yet, but I've found other things. And half of what I was looking for? That's pretty darn good!

There are plenty of things that I wasn't looking for but was glad to see --

The light squares of Nancy Drew fabric that wouldn't work for the big quilt were waiting in a pretty and completely forgotten stack. I can think of a few ways to incorporate them into a baby quilt.

I found a whole paper grocery sack of Christmas prints just perfect to be ugly sweater blocks.

A shoebox of fabrics I'd collected for a diffrent project is exactly what I need to make a quilted tote that I've had dancing in the back of my imagination all week.

There were two masking taped bundles of vintage pillowcases that I'm sure must have come from Grandma...and I've never seen them before. My best guess is that they were buried in a box of left over estate sale sheets that I never went entirely through. More than once, those boxes went straight up to the sewing room.

And that's why I'm doing this. I've got to figure out what I've got and get it into some kind of order.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

This project is giving me a whole new appreciation for traditional redwork. It's just so pretty! And easy, since there aren't a lot of decisions to make about colors combinations.

I like some squares more than others. The apron is adorable and the sewing machine is just okay and the little dress is somewhere in between. But once I get them all stitched and put together with the pieced blocks, it's all going to be wonderful.

I'm still saving little ends of embroidery thread for the Totally Useless Stitch Along. There's a lot more in my little measuring cup than I had in last months' post, most of it red.

I don't know how many books of sock patterns I own. Back when I was reading about socks because I was too intimidated to actually try knitting one, I snapped up every title that I could find and afford. Since then, I've become a little pickier. Does the book teach my something I don't already know? Does it have a bunch of patterns I absolutely can't live without?

Custom Socks: Knit to Fit Your Feet by Kate Atherley fits into the first category. It covers the basics of sock knitting -- yarn selection, needle choices and methods, how to knit a basic sock for your own measurements and gauge. Then it gets into the complicated stuff, like how cables and colorwork change your gauge and how to work with stitch patterns with large repeats. Each sock pattern in the book includes a design case study, explaining how different elements were chosen and adjusted. From there, it moves on to adjustments for non-average feet. (I think I found my own problem here -- I haven't pulled out a tape measure yet, but I'm betting that my foot and ankle circumference aren't the same.)

I'd recommend this one for knitters who really want to understand how their socks work or aren't knitting for the most common sizes.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Elle Bence sent me pictures of a bunch of her baby quilts to share with you.

If anyone doesn't blog or have a flickr account and wants to show off their baby quilt progress, just send me the pictures. Just please make it clear whether or not they're supposed to be shared.

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules: Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned, as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

The pattern is The Wicker Socks and the yarn is Knitpicks Stroll Tonal, Kindling. I'm just a bit giddy about how that all worked out. It couldn't have been more perfect if I'd tried to match them up.

I love these socks. They conjure up fun memories of the movie the pattern was inspired by, the yarn is yummy, they're nice to look at, and they're the best fitting patterned socks I've knit in a while.

The wicker transitions into flames, which is totally fitting. That end of that movie has always stuck with me. I think I read the book at a kid...unless somehow I did see the original move, which seems unlikely. I know that when I found it on television late one night, I already knew the story. The remake isn't nearly as creepy, but it provided great background noise/watching when I was working on my Endpaper Mitts.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Top down socks aren't my favorite, but if a stitch pattern is directional and I like it enough, I'll do it. To get these silently screaming faces going the right direction, it's worth it. Until I get to the heel, which uses a technique that I haven't tried before, this will be easy knitting.

And when I'm not knitting, I'm reading...

Death and the Brewmaster's Widow, the second Auction Block mystery by Loretta Ross, is just as good as the first book in the series. It picks up right where the last book ended, which was a little disorienting for me (after a year my memory for detail is less than great), but as soon as I figured out what was going on, I remembered why I love the characters of Wren and Death so much. They're a wonderful couple. So many books rely on jealousy and misunderstandings to keep things interesting, but this author avoids those cliches. And this time the mystery is so close to home that I ached for the characters. While Death was overseas, his brother, died in an arson fire at the Brewmaster's Widow, an abandoned brewery. The badge that's just been returned to Death, the one recovered from his brother's body, has the wrong number on it. There shouldn't have been a badge on the body at all because Randy broke his own badge the morning of the fire and left it at the fire station. The old brewery and the network of caves beneath it aren't at all safe, and the arsonist still hasn't been caught, but Wren and Death are determined to find out what really happened the day of the fire.

I'm always on the lookout for books that my younger boys might like and Bad Luckby Pseudonymous Bosch looked like it might fit the bill. It probably would have been better if I'd read the first book in the series first. Set on a fog shrouded volcanic island with a dragon and a flying teepee, this book reminded me a little bit of the Series of Unfortunate Events and a little bit less of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. It's quirky and kind of fun.

Tuesday, February 09, 2016

On my way home from an appointment Friday morning, I passed the sign for an estate sale. There wasn't a huge hurry to get back to the house, so I made a bit of a detour - just enough to discover that the sale was at the end of a dead end road at the top of a hill. There were cars parked on either side of the narrow road and some nice young men directing traffic. I could have had a space up in the driveway, but the idea of backing out of there in the SUV was enough to make me skip that opportunity.

Teenage Daughter and I went back on Saturday morning. Parking wasn't nearly as bad, but we chose to park down the street and hike up the hill. That's where I found my box of zippers. The nice young men were on duty again, this time parking cars for people. As much as I don't want to navigate a parking situation like that, I'm not handing over my keys to let a complete stranger do it!

It was my favorite kind of estate sale, where it seems that a couple has lived in a house for decades and not done much decluttering along the way. There were lots of intriguing old toys and knick knacks and a home made dollhouse with some spectacular vintage wallpaper (my phone won't send the pictures to my computer) and inexpensive jigsaw puzzles and VHS movies to make my little boys happy.

Monday, February 08, 2016

I dug around in the sewing room yesterday and managed to cross another couple of items off of that long list of things I'm looking for. This time it was the Miss Kitty quilt and the fabric pictured above with the shoes on it. It's coarse, almost like burlap but a little less rustic. The shoes are cute and when I first found it in a scrap bag I thought it might make a nice little pouch, so I tucked it away. Then I started the zip a bag project and wished I could remember where I'd put it.

The tribbles will do me more good in the kitchen than the sewing room and the cat fabric will be a cute makeup pouch for Teenage Daughter.

I started these a few years back, then life happened and the next time I saw them, I couldn't remember what project they were a part of. Whatever it was, it was an online tutorial and I'm sure it was a disappearing something-or-other.

The center squares are 7" and the strips that make up the border are 4." I'd pulled a bunch of red and blue shirts so whatever it was, it was going to be at least a lap quilt.

Sunday, February 07, 2016

Ever since LiEr at Ikat Bag started her Zip a Bag series and I both lost my fear of zippers and found out what brand new ones cost, I've been watching for estate sales and hoping to find another box of cheap zippers.

And yes, I do realize that it's somewhat crazy to shop estate sales looking just for zippers. But at the second estate sale I tried, I found some. The company running these sales doesn't do math the same way I do, so I'm not sure exactly what I paid for them. After subtracting what the angry stuffed kangaroo and Teenage Daughter's box of lace and some jigsaw puzzles should have cost, it worked out to something like three dollars for twenty zippers.

I'm happy and somewhat confused by their pricing. The zippers ranged from seventy-five cents for a big heavy duty one (which makes sense) to fifty or fifteen cents for nearly identical small ones (which doesn't.) Oh, and they were half off the marked prices. I'd expected them to sell me the box for a few bucks, so I didn't add them all up in advance.

I've got new-to-me zippers and Teenage Daughter has some vintage nail polish (apparently that's a thing) and we're both happy.

But if you're a professional running an estate sale, you just might want to take off the price tags from the sales that the deceased person bought the stuff from decades earlier. Because if the piece of masking tape on the item says fifty cents and you want twenty dollars, you're going to wind up with confused buyers.

Saturday, February 06, 2016

I've got a ridiculously long list of embroidered quilts I want to make and that list keeps getting longer. If I make some of the little ones that'll make room on the list for more big projects, right?

Mom and I saw a shop sample of the Vintage Vignettes wall quilt and both fell in love with it. It's got everything -- cute redwork and pieced pinwheels and a prairie point border (although I can't guarantee that I won't get skittish and skip the prairie points!)

Compared to the blocks I spent last year stitching, these seven little squares shouldn't take long at all to get done.

Friday, February 05, 2016

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules: Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned, as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

I'm glad that this one is finished, partly because it's going to be great for snuggling up in and partly because I'll no longer have to struggle with spelling Snoqualmie. (Do I get any credit for knowing how to pronounce it?)

The pattern, Snoqualmie Wrap, is from Wanderlust: 46 Modern Knits for Bohemian Style by Tanis Gray. I found the book at the library and I love the fact that all of the projects are for worsted weight yarn. The designer had superwash wool in mind, but I've got a stash full of acrylic.

For this wrap, I used up three skeins of Caron Simply Soft Heathers. The pattern calls for about 1000 yards of yarn and I had 750. I told myself that it would be fine. I'm short and probably didn't need 74" of wrap. I haven't measured what I wound up with, but it's plenty of wrap for me.

The mix of garter stitch and simple lace it just perfect. I could work on it while watching television with the family and, with an eight stitch lace repeat, it was easy to count back to a yarn over if I lost my place. It took a couple of weeks of evening television knitting.

Along with the knitting, I've been reading...

The second book in the Sketch in Crime mystery series by Deidre Verne is out and I was happy to get my hands on a copy. In Drawing Blood, CeCe and her Freegan friends are helping the police investigate the murder of the man who manages the local dump. His death may have appeared to be a tragic accident, but there's a lot more going on at the facility than first meets the eye. Instead of focusing on CeCe's dumpster diving activities, this book concentrates on the criminal aspects of recycling. That's in stark contrast to her father and the genetic research he was doing, which has left her with plenty of unanswered questions. I love the characters, and the subject matter makes this different from any other cozy series I've read.

Carrie Morgan's son vanished from his car seat while she was digging in her purse to find change for a parking meter. Then, a year later, she finds him safe and sound in his crib. It's a confusing miracle. Ben hasn't grown or changed at all. And, twenty four hours later, he vanishes again. One More Day by Kelly Simmons is an intriguing domestic thriller. Carrie is fragile and her husband seems convinced that she needs constant supervision. This is a disturbing domestic thriller. I can't tell you more without giving too much away, but if you like guessing until the end, it's a good read. I do wish the author had tied up a few more loose ends.